Chapter 4: Who Would Do Something That Insane?
He could see the student thrashing about and vomiting blood.
Behind him, Lee Se-a had arrived at some point, drawn by the commotion.
Her expression seemed to be saying something.
‘What on earth are you doing!’
“Hah.”
He let out a short sigh.
The reason he had held back all this while, even with the professors making such a scene, was simple.
Because he wanted to live well here on this Earth, in this South Korea he had wanted so badly to return to.
Because he wanted to follow the rules of this place and adapt.
And apparently the rule here was that a mere professorial applicant was not to step forward in a situation like this.
“What is that supposed to mean? His heart will burst?”
The professor who had tried to stop him shouted, veins standing out on his neck.
For a moment Kang Hyeon’s lips twisted and his true feelings nearly spilled out.
‘You imbeciles. You’re plugging the hole shut by force—where do you think smoke trapped in a burning house is going to go? Straight back into the weakest thing there is, the heart, and it bursts.’
But he held it in.
Because he remembered the warning the chick had given him on the way over.
“When you get there you absolutely must not talk down to people the way you do to me! Polite speech, no exceptions! Understood? You’re the one who said you wanted to be a professor. If you cause any more trouble there, even the Bureau won’t be able to do anything for you.”
Honestly, it was maddeningly awkward.
He had fallen into Murim at thirteen and spoken nothing but Chinese for twenty years.
It was not that he did not know Korean polite speech—it simply would not stick to his tongue.
But what could he do?
This too was a gate he had to pass through in order to adapt to the world.
“The energy is twisted once at the Central Cavity, twice at the Cycle Gate.”
“What? How would you know that?”
Normally there was no way to know without taking the pulse.
But Kang Hyeon had learned medicine from the Mad Hand, a lunatic old man who had handed down instruction even to the Divine Physician, the Demonic Physician and the Medicine Immortal.
The Mad Hand, one of the seven old men who had taught him, read the flow of qi with his eyes and diagnosed disease with his nose.
“Believe it or not, that is your affair, but the boy has to be saved, does he not?”
“What do you think you’re doing!”
Head Professor Jin Myeong-hun stepped forward, but there was no time, so he strode straight over to the student.
At the same time, he laid his hand on the Sea of Qi point, about two inches below the navel.
“W-Wait! What are you doing?”
The eyes of the student, who had been watching the situation, filled with terror.
Look at that.
In genuine qi deviation, a man cannot grasp his situation at all.
“Are you insane? That’s his qi center!”
“What kind of madman lays a hand on the qi center of someone in qi deviation? Get away from him this instant!”
The professors were in an uproar.
‘The noise is unbearable.’
Kang Hyeon lightly ignored the shouting, like a swarm of buzzing flies, and struck the point.
“Kuheok!”
A clot of dark red blood erupted from the boy’s mouth like a fountain.
Spatter!
The blood droplets that flew in every direction stained the floor of the training ground red.
Having spat up the blood, the boy collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
‘Treatment complete.’
That single strike had completely released the twisted points.
But.
“Th-This crazy son of a bitch! He’s gone and killed the student!”
The training ground turned into utter pandemonium.
Even Lee Se-a, watching from the far entrance, had gone white in the face, and he could see her clapping a hand over her mouth.
That was when it happened.
Shing!
A metallic ring sounded.
Jin Myeong-hun had drawn his sword.
“You dare kill an Academy student? I will hold you accountable for this!”
Kang Hyeon simply stared flatly at the man advancing with his aura pouring off him.
Ordinarily, his head would have left his shoulders the moment he drew that weapon.
Because that was the way of the Murim he had lived in for twenty years.
In that moment Kang Hyeon deliberated.
Should he follow his instincts from Murim, or his reason from Earth?
The one who rescued Jin Myeong-hun from that murderous deliberation was none other than the Dean.
“Stop, Professor Jin!”
He stepped in front of Jin Myeong-hun.
The Dean’s expression seemed to be saying this:
‘Just stay still, I’m begging you! Unless you want to die!’
“Dean!”
“Sheathe your sword! You’re far too worked up right now.”
“B-But this man just beat the boy to death, did he not!”
“Even supposing he did, is there any reason for you to draw a sword at this moment?”
“……!”
At the Dean’s thundering rebuke, Jin Myeong-hun was left with nothing to say.
“Dean! Are you taking the side of a man you’re seeing for the first time? Is it because he has connections in the Bureau?”
“Do not cross the line.”
The Dean’s voice sank low.
The eyes of the old Dean, who normally went about laughing amiably at everything, turned heavy.
“Even supposing that man harmed a student, that is for the Academy disciplinary committee and the Association’s inspection bureau to judge and punish. It is not a matter for a mere professor to draw a sword and pass sentence on privately.”
“Kuh.”
“Put that sword away this instant. If you don’t take my words for a joke.”
At the Dean’s savage warning, Jin Myeong-hun’s face contorted.
Just as he was reluctantly moving to sheathe the sword.
“Cough!”
A coughing sound rang out from the middle of the training ground, where silence had settled.
Every gaze snapped to the floor.
“Cough, kuheok!”
The body of the student who had been lying there drenched in blood heaved, and the boy expelled a painful breath.
Then, before long, he unsteadily pushed his upper body upright.
Color had already returned to his pallid face, and the energy that had been raging as though it would burst out of him had gone quiet.
“Hah, haah.”
Breathing roughly, the student groped at his chest and stomach and muttered.
“It—It doesn’t hurt……”
Even the Dean was astonished at the sight.
No—every single person watching the scene wore a blank expression.
“H-He’s alive?”
“Striking the qi center resolves qi deviation?”
“What on earth…… is this.”
It was the Dean who put the situation in order.
Code Name: Black was a national secret.
The Dean understood better than anyone that drawing more eyes would do no good.
“What are you all doing! Move the student to the infirmary at once and let him rest!”
At the Dean’s thunderous command, the professors hastily supported the student and made their way out of the training ground.
Having settled the situation in a single stroke, the Dean quietly turned to face Kang Hyeon.
“Ahem. Mr. Kang Hyeon?”
“Hyeon is fine.”
“Hoho, is that so? I’m sorry to have put you through such an unseemly disturbance for nothing.”
“It’s all right. Thanks to it, things sorted themselves out nicely.”
“Thank you for the matter of the student. I’m sorry for the trouble, but would you wait in the reception room? We’ll speak again once things are settled.”
“Understood.”
***
The medical center.
Professor Hwang Ye-rim, just returned from her business trip, took the student’s pulse.
“He’s stable.”
At her composed voice, the shoulders of the faculty who had been anxiously awaiting the result went slack.
“You said the Sea of Qi point was struck? That was an appropriate emergency measure. There are traces of twisting around the Central Cavity and the Cycle Gate, and in a case like this you have to open the passages of the qi and blood and make the patient expel the congealed blood all at once.”
Deep admiration settled into Hwang Ye-rim’s eyes.
Knowing the theory was one thing; only someone with considerable mastery of qi medicine could treat it this cleanly.
“Who was it?”
“……”
“Who prescribed this so perfectly?”
Silence.
Not one of the professors, Jin Myeong-hun included, could open their mouth.
That the very method they had objected to had turned out to be perfect!
How mortifying was that!
Just then.
The Dean, who had been observing the situation with his arms folded, spoke up obliquely.
“Professor Hwang. Let me ask you one thing.”
“Yes, Dean.”
“Suppose……”
The Dean’s gaze moved across the stiffened faces of the faculty.
“Suppose someone had spread a qi net from outside and forcibly suppressed the true energy. What do you think would have become of this student?”
It was less to lay blame than to make sure the point was driven home.
“Hmm.”
Professor Hwang’s brow furrowed.
At the same time, an answer came out flat and unhesitating.
“Who would do something that insane?”
“……!”
“The energy is already twisted and running wild with nowhere to go, and if external pressure is applied on top of that, it will rush to the weakest thing there is, the heart. Then…… it wouldn’t be long before the heart meridian burst and he died on the spot.”
Jin Myeong-hun’s legs wavered.
He had nearly killed the boy, and the parachute hire he had drawn his sword on was the lifesaver who had brought the boy back.
The Dean asked nothing further beyond that.
What would professors who had only ever swung swords know?
He knew their desire to save the student had been genuine as well.
Only.
“I’d say this is more than enough to verify the applicant’s qualifications as a professor. What does everyone think?”
While he had the momentum, the opposition had to be pressed down.
Not one professor answered.
Even with ten mouths between them, they would likely have had nothing to say.
Because Kang Hyeon had cleaned up their mistake.
“Then I’ll take that as agreement.”
Watching the Dean nod and walk out, Jin Myeong-hun bit his lip.
He acknowledged this particular matter.
But.
Whether a little medical knowledge was enough to discuss a man’s qualifications as a professor was another question entirely.
‘Go on and try it. Let’s see whether that fine medical knowledge of yours works from a lectern as well.’
Jin Myeong-hun turned away, suppressing the boiling in his gut.
***
“Mr. Kang Hyeon! No, I should call you Professor now!”
In the car back to the safe house.
Lee Se-a, sitting in the driver’s seat, was making a fuss.
In the hands of Kang Hyeon, seated in the back, was the Academy’s special professorship appointment letter, handed to him by the Dean in person.
National Hunter Academy
Letter of Appointment, Special Professor
Name: Kang Hyeon
Position: Special Professor
Course: Special Instruction Studies
Term of Appointment: 1 year
The above individual is hereby appointed Special Professor of the National Hunter Academy.
Dean of the National Hunter Academy, Seo Il-hyeon (seal)
‘Special Instruction Studies.’
They had scheduled it for exactly one day, Saturday, two hours of class.
They asked his understanding that, as he was not a full professor, it could not be placed among the main subjects, and he had said fine.
“It was honestly incredible. How did you know without even taking his pulse? You whacked his qi center and the blood came spraying out and the kid just came right back to life—did you see the face on that Professor Jin Myeong-hun, or whatever his name is?”
Chatter, chatter.
Beyond the rearview mirror, Lee Se-a’s mouth did not stop moving.
At first she had trembled at the mere meeting of eyes; now she seemed to have grown a little comfortable.
Kang Hyeon did not so much as answer.
He simply.
Gulp, gulp.
Swigged the whiskey in the back seat straight from the bottle like mineral water.
“Khh.”
With the heat of the liquor he pressed down the pain in his qi center, and suppressed Asura’s venom as well.
“And you really did well. Using polite speech all the way through, just like I asked. Although ‘stand aside, all of you’…… was a bit much.”
“Hey.”
Kang Hyeon frowned and struck the back of the front seat.
“Y-Yes?”
“Quiet, and drive faster.”
A faint groan of pain was mixed into the end of the words.
Sharp-eyed as she was, Lee Se-a caught it.
‘Ah, again.’
She stole a glance at Kang Hyeon’s pale face in the rearview mirror.
‘I knew it.’
There was no doubt about it—Black was hurting somewhere.
Growing anxious, Lee Se-a stamped on the accelerator with a roar.
“You’re all right, aren’t you? If it hurts that badly……”
“Did you not hear me? I said be quiet.”
“Yes.”
Before long they arrived at the safe house, and.
BANG!
The door shut.
For some reason, Lee Se-a felt that there was something desperate about Kang Hyeon’s back as he went.
What on earth is it?
Why won’t you let it show?
When you can burst a Leviathan with a single wave of your hand.
Just what kind of hell he was going through alone, Lee Se-a was beginning, more and more, to want to know.
